Thoughtfully Ruthless

Unlock explosive growth potential with the true model of modern leadership

Thoughtfully Ruthless lays out the secret to rapid business growth by showing you how to magically invent more time, catapult your energy, and boost the productivity of your resources. Author Val Wright has worked with leaders of all stripes—from doctors to musicians to Fortune 50 C-suite executives—to help them unlock their potential and achieve the next level of success. Her experiences have shown time and time again that it's not the economy, or the market conditions, or the competition that's holding your business back.

The secret to exponential growth lies within how leaders ruthlessly manage their time, energy, and resources in parallel. Everyone is on a virtual center stage with the whole world watching and reporting every move, leaders need to know how to be ruthless in a thoughtful way. This book shows you how to become that kind of leader, and how to adopt the habits, skills, and practices of some of the most successful business leaders of our time. You'll learn how to become sensibly selfish, how to spend your time and energy, and what issues to delegate or ignore so you can clear your slate to focus on what really matters to you.

In a world where rapid growth is the new norm, we have input overload. Leadership is much-lauded but commonly under-practiced in business today. This book is designed to help you shape your leadership to drive business growth, get you promoted faster, and create a life that you love.

• Recover your time and energy away from black holes
• Focus on the factors that really impact your business
• Identify and build the all-star team you need tomorrow—today
• Create magnetic support and followership
• Learn the secret to pulling ahead of the competition

With all the boardroom handwringing about products, the new consumer, and financial results, it's easy to get sucked into issues that ultimately have only a granular effect on real growth. Thoughtfully Ruthless leadership differentiates remarkable leaders and companies. This book provides a model for growth-oriented leadership, and lays out the essential practices you should start today.

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Part I Why You Need to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless 1

Chapter 1 Thoughtful and Ruthless 3

The Trigger Points for Thoughtfully Ruthless 3

Who Is Thoughtful? Who Is Ruthless? 5

Can You Name One? 6

Your Time, Energy, and Resources 7

How Thoughtfully Ruthless Are You? 15

Chapter 2 The Cost of Doing Nothing 19

The Cost of Delay 20

The Downward Spiral of Gloom 21

The Thoughtfully Ruthless Success Loop 25

Chapter 3 Your Selfish Charter 29

Your Sensibly Selfish Charter 32

Wishful Thinking Works 35

Chapter 4 Become Brilliant at Demonstrating Your Brilliance 39

Assessing Your Brilliance and How Brilliantly You Demonstrate It 40

Why Appearance Trumps Reality Every Time 42

How to Transform from Being Humble to Shameless 48

Your Action 50

Part II Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Time 53

Chapter 5 The Power of No 55

The Powerful Post-It 56

The Immediacy Effect 57

How to Be Productively Unproductive 60

How to Control Input Overload 61

Your Lost Discipline List 63

Thirty Ways to Say No 64

Chapter 6 SHUSH!: How to Create Silence, Space, and Time 67

Your Daily Silence 67

The Gift of Time 70

In-box in Control 73

Calendar Chaos 77

Meaningful Meetings 79

The Thoughtfully Ruthless Deadline Tracker 84

Part III Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Energy 89

Chapter 7 Becoming Imperturbable 91

How to Stop the Worry Trifecta 91

Rapid Thought to Action 95

How Imperturbable Are You? 96

Managing the Energy Leaks 98

Your Accelerators and Decelerators 100

Accelerating by Improving Your Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise 100

Chapter 8 Divorce Your Friends and Network 109

The Greenhouse Effect 110

Put Your Social Life on Autopilot 113

An Enviable Inner Circle of Advisors 115

Internal and External Connections 116

Communities 116

Perfecting Your Team’s Connections 117

Surrounding Yourself with Believers 117

Chapter 9 Creating a Leapfrog Organization 119

Your Five-Year Leap 119

The Intentional Annoyance Phase 124

Building an Exemplary Board 127

Leaving Your Legacy 132

Chapter 10 The Thoughtfully Ruthless Team 135

Steps for Galvanizing Your Team 138

The Characteristics of a Galvanized Team 142

Do You Tolerate Mediocrity? 149

Chapter 11 Amazon versus Microsoft 155

Assessing Your Culture 160

Can You Take the Heat? 167

Reward the Results You Want 169

Unleashing Innovation 170

Using the Cultural Continuum 171

The Express Lane to Culture Change 172

Chapter 12 Mind the Gap 173

Evaporating Excuses 173

Prepare for Abrupt U-turns 175

Change Your View, Change Your Habits 176

Listen to Who You Listen to 177

Evidence, Patterns, and Observed Behavior 177

Practice Altitude Adjustment 179

Make Unpopular and High-Risk Decisions 179

Appendix 185

Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Time 185

Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Energy 190

Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Resources 194

About the Author 201

Index 203

VAL WRIGHT works with Fortune 500 executives to accelerate growth and innovation, and creates compassionate truth telling, fearlessness, and extensive creative, technical, and leadership gains. Her clients include household names such as Starbucks, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Financial Times, and DreamWorks Animation. She's an inductee into the Million Dollar Consultant^® Hall of Fame and she is a regular contributor on CNBC, Inc., Bloomberg, Reuters, MSN and Today.

Today's boardrooms are filled with executives wringing their hands over such concerns as product decisions, the new consumer, and financial results, and even if they find a solution, all their work will only have a granular effect on real growth. Thoughtfully Ruthless lays out the secret to rapid business growth by showing you how to unbelievably invent more time, catapult your energy, and boost the productivity of your resources.

Author Val Wright has unlocked the potential of leaders of all stripes—from doctors to musicians to C-suite executives—and guided their ascent to the next level of success. In most cases, the obstacle they overcome is not the economy, the market conditions, or the competition. In her storied career, she discovered that the secret to exponential growth comes down to how leaders ruthlessly manage their time, energy, and resources … in a thoughtful way. Through firsthand stories of the author being thoughtfully ruthless in her own career and life, she shows you how to do the same by adopting the habits, skills, and practices of some of the most successful business leaders of our time. You'll learn how to become sensibly selfish, how to spend your time and energy, and what issues to delegate or ignore so you can clear your slate to focus on what really matters to you. Designed around the principles it lays out, this straightforward resource comes packed with tangible directives that are quick and easy to use, inject fresh energy into your routine, and immediately improve the way you operate. Keep this toolkit at your fingertips for real-time coaching when you feel like hesitating, including:

• Dozens of ready-to-use assessments, exercises, and proven practical tools for accelerating growth
• Concrete steps for transforming yourself from humble to shameless
• Thirty ways to say "no" and other ways to take control of your daily input
• An appendix of 99 ways to be thoughtfully ruthless with your time, energy, and resources

Start your transformation now and be selfish—get Thoughtfully Ruthless and shape your leadership to drive business growth, get promoted faster, and create the life you love.

Praise for THOUGHTFULLY Ruthless

"Val Wright has worked in some of the toughest corporate cultures in business; she's seen it all. Thoughtfully Ruthless acts as a personal playbook to navigate your career in the most competitive of environments by focusing on your strengths and identifying growth opportunities for your company. Essential reading for executives at every level."
—Peter Moore, Chief Operating Officer, Electronic Arts

"As an executive you are expected to be a great decision maker, on 24/7, and able to leap buildings in a single bound and do it in a way that inspires. It requires you to be at your best all the time. Val's work and book Thoughtfully Ruthless is an amazing tool that every executive or aspiring executive can learn from. Unlocking effectiveness and teaching how to take care of yourself, team, and business through transparency, and not shying away from being thoughtfully ruthless on the things that matter most. In a world filled with leadership models that feel nonauthentic and heavy, this is light and this method delivers."
—John Phillips, Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition, Starbucks Corporation

"Val Wright has always provided the frank, honest, insightful feedback I've needed to be a better leader. Thoughtfully Ruthless takes that to the next level by focusing on the scarce resources of time and energy that challenge all of us in our professional and personal lives. Val provides the stories and insights necessary to bring her message of empowerment home in an impactful way that should be very valuable for any leader."
—Robbie Bach, Former Microsoft President, Chief Xbox Officer, and Author of Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal

"Val Wright is the real deal, an executive coach who 'gets it.' She will change the way you think, the way you perceive challenges, and the way you implement personal leadership. Thoughtfully Ruthless is a must for every leader who wants to up his or her game."
—Kate Hill, Former executive, Tribune Publishing

"Thoughtfully Ruthless manages to capture the character of the leaders each of us has dealt with, as well as those we try to emulate, in a way that shows the depth and insightfulness of author Val Wright. I have no doubt that her experiences would allow her to determine what is necessary for one who wishes to be an effective leader. Even with this confidence, the valuable information within the book, and the enthralling way in which it is presented, she's exceeded all of my expectations, leaving me impressed and motivated to improve as a leader."
—Ilan Spillinger, CVP, Hololens and Custom Silicon, Microsoft Corporation